Offseason Landmine

Every time the Jays lose a couple of games in a row, some Einstein sports writer points out that we needed pitching last offseason and didn’t get it, and that our attempt to “go cheap” on starters has ended in ruin. While it’s true that we’ve ended up with one marginal 5th starter from the 3 pitchers we picked up, nobody ever points out that once plan A (signing Lilly and/or Meche) failed and B (trading Rios – our current MVP – for pitching) wasn’t really going anywhere, we could have done a lot worse. At least we paid basically nothing for crap! Here’s what COULD have happened…

While we’re at it, here’s some options instead of the much-maligned Clayton for the middle infield, or Thomas at DH.

Hitters

Julio Lugo: 9 million, 4 years AVG .236 | HR 3 | RBI 27

Adam Kennedy: 3.3 million, 3 years: AVG .231 | HR 0 | RBI 9

Frank Catalonotto: 5 million, 3 years AVG .164 | HR 3 | RBI 10

Mark Derosa: 4.3 million, 3 years AVG .254 | HR 4 | RBI 19

Put it all together, and there’s a ton of cash we didn’t waste- and there wasn’t really much out there (other than the two we tried real hard for who are tearing up the league). The only pitchers that are doing decent are Marquis (ha!), Suppan (4 x 10 mil is still ridiculous) and Randy Wolf (we’ll see if he makes it past 12 games this year). They say sometimes the best trade is the one you don’t make- well, these are some really good offseason signings in the same vein.

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Wow, every team EXCEPT the poor stupid Mariners dodged a bullet on Weaver, its been a turkey shoot every time they’ve run him out there – methinks, ‘right shoulder tendinitis’ is code for ‘lets buy some more time so this doesn’t come out worse then the Russ Ortiz debacle. Did they even look at his stats last year???

In Frank Catalanotto defence, he’s been bitten by the injury bug again which has plagued him his whole career – it seems the only place he was able to stay mostly health was in a platoon in Toronto. Still one of the best pure hitters in the game – and he’s still been hitting HRs about once every 12ABs.

I know he’s our current MVP – but the Rios for Penny trade is looking might tasty right now:

Brad Penny: REC 6-1 | ERA 2.26 | WHIP 1.23

On a high note for free agent signings, I think we’re finally seeing some life in Frank Thomas. Didn’t you mention that we’re about at the 1-year anniversary to the day where he broke out last year?

Poor stupid Mariners…amazing that a couple of good starts in the playoffs got a team to bite. At least it wasn’t a multi-year contract. They also signed Sidney Ponson to plug up their stream of emerging young starters for a while with a guy who had one good season 4 chances ago.

I would have screamed so hard if we had traded Rios for Penny in the offseason. Ok, maybe you could have calmed me down with repeated “pitching is everything” sessions. But who knew? Even though Alex is the only guy on our team who can hit right now that would have been a big move.

On a totally unrelated note- what do you think our record would be right now if Lilly and Meche had signed?

Yep, it was the 22nd last year that Frank broke out with a couple of homers. This year he just hit everything hard that game, and then followed it up with 2 homer nights. We’re coming up on 200 AB which is the magic number he gave for his power stroke. Oh man if he starts slugging his OBP is going to be so sick.

Oh, and the Mariners didn’t sign Ponson…the Twins were the ones who thought “You know, we have Scott Baker, Matt Garza, Glen Perkins all ready to jump into make the rotation…screw it, let’s sign Sidney Ponson!”

Oh, right….and they also signed Ramon Ortiz for 3 million freaking bucks. Unbelievable. Who did pretty much what you’d expect and is now being replaced by Slowey (obviously another good prospect if he’s getting the nod over Garza- but with a terrible name…)

I love this preseason article, which was basically trying to find sort of thought process behind those two signings.